


Sure Could Use the Rest

by theshipsfirstmate



Series: Trouble Sleeping [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: 4 am fic, F/M, season 4 spec
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 08:43:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4660113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshipsfirstmate/pseuds/theshipsfirstmate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel of sorts to “Twisting in My Head.” Oliver’s POV. It’s their first night in the loft and Felicity can’t sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sure Could Use the Rest

**Sure Could Use the Rest**

Oliver recognizes the hunch of her shoulders. He’s looked over this city with the same contemplative stiffness a thousand times before. She’s got the weight of several worlds on her right now, but she’s handling it far better than he ever did. Except for the part where he wakes up and she’s on the balcony instead of in his arms.

It’s their first night in the loft, and he knows it’s easier on him that it is on Felicity, for a number of reasons. Despite the fact that he spent the day lugging boxes of clothes and shoes and an infinite amount of electronics up a few dozen flights of stairs, he feels looser and lighter than he has in years, and he knows it’s all thanks being here with his sister and with her.

But something had been off about her, he had noticed after dinner. The furrow in her brow had deepened as her shoulders stiffened gradually when Thea questioned them about their time away, then filled them in on everything that had happened in their absence. They had fallen into bed exhausted, but he felt her tossing and turning as he dozed off. When he woke up, she was gone.

He’s not naive enough to think that he can take away her worry tonight, but he can at least take her back to bed. The second his arms band around her, he feels her relax, just slightly, and he can’t help but consider that a small victory.

“Felicity?”

“I’m okay,” she assures him, but she only turns halfway in his arms, a physical embodiment of the things she’s holding back. “I just couldn’t sleep.”

“I told you we could get our own place,” Oliver tells her, trying his best not to sound accusatory. Truth is, he wouldn’t care either way. He’d go back to sleeping on the bare mattress in the Foundry if she was with him.

“It’s not that, I swear,” she says quickly and there’s no artifice to it. “I want to be here, I want you to be here. As much family as possible.”

His heart clenches because he knows she means Thea, but she also means her. And she also means also means Digg, and Lyla and Sara, just the latest members of his family that he’s let down.

“It was just too hot and I couldn’t…there’s a lot going on up here, you know?” She breaks him from his train of thought with a nervous little babble, fluttering her hands and he can’t help it, he grabs one so he can tug her the rest of the way around and into his arms.

He presses a kiss to her forehead and when her grasp tightens on his arm, it takes him a moment to figure out why. He’s left her behind so many times, the memories have muddled together into his brain into a horrible black hole that he tried to burn out with the glint of sunset off of his father’s Porsche.

“I do know,” he smiles down at her and watches her eyes soften almost enough. “I’ve known that for years. Come back to bed.”

“I will,” she nearly whispers. “Just have to think through…some things.”

He nods and kisses her once more before turning to leave her to her thoughts. He might not be as smart as her, but he knows this need from experience. He’ll happily give her as much time as she needs. Except for that…

“Think through some things…” He’s turning back to open the door to the balcony before his brain can even process what happening, and he flinches when he throws her words back to her and they come out slightly cracked.

“Oliver, no,” her eyes go wide with worry and the shock helps him breathe again, “not…us. Never.”

“Not never,” he pushes because she’s trying to placate him again. It’s sweet and it’s noble and it’s everything she is to him, but she has to stop. He keeps trying to show her how ready he is for her to just let go, to fall into this without trying to protect him. “I know this won’t always be as perfect as it has been, as it was on our trip.”

His lips twitch involuntarily at the memory of her walking barefoot down the shore, her hair fanned out on motel pillows. “But you’d…you’ll tell me, when it is, right?”

Felicity’s eyes go wide and goddamn it, he loves her so much. He almost can’t remember a time when he didn’t. His whole world makes more sense with her. It’s like he’s been looking through the wrong end of a telescope until three years ago when she came and turned it around for him.

“Of course,” she breathes. “Oliver, of course I would.”

She presses her lips to his like she has something to prove, and even though she doesn’t, he’s glad for it. This is all he needs right now. He’s seconds away from sliding his tongue into her mouth along with a sigh of relief when she beats him to the punch, and the small part of his brain that’s still operating has a bit of a revelation.

He’s loved her for years now. He admired her brain from the very beginning, and it’s not like he hadn’t noticed her body. But as soon as she showed him her heart, he was done for. He’s loved her underground and in high-rises, on desert islands and in prison cells, on top of a snowy mountain and in a candle-light room shrouded in tapestries and promises. He’s going to love her in the real world now.

Their kiss goes from hot and heavy to slow and sleepy and he feels her slump more completely against him. He takes one last long look at his city – they’re both trying on new identities this time around – and takes her to bed.

“Mmm.” He scoops her into his arms and even though every one of his muscles aches, it’s a weight he’d gladly carry the rest of his life. “My hero.”

She’s asleep before he reaches the top of the stairs, and when he lays her down in their bed, she curls into him instinctively, pressing her face into the crook of his neck and pulling him close.


End file.
